English NIMBYs Organize Against HSR Project
True high speed rail is coming to the rest of Great Britain – but will NIMBYs block it?
The new British coalition government supports HSR, with some changes to the Labour proposal, and Scotland is insistent that it be included in the project. The environmental benefits, particularly reduction of carbon emissions, are significant. HSR will help reduce the need for flights and car trips between Britain’s cities. And of course, the recent eruption of Eyjafjallajökull showed the benefits of high speed rail.
And yet there are those in England who think those benefits are outweighed by their own aesthetic preferences. Sadly, NIMBYism is a common phenomenon in the western world, as the United Kingdom is discovering, as anti-HSR NIMBYs organize in England:
A route between London and Birmingham with a future extension to northern England and Scotland was announced by the former Labour government in March.
The new Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition government has committed to the scheme but not said what the route should be.
But groups in Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Buckinghamshire have vowed to fight it….
But [some] residents have said they are upset at the effect the route will have on their homes and livelihoods.
Separate protest groups have been formed since the plans were announced but now, they have decided to merge.
This will probably give some added fuel to Peninsula NIMBYs, but we’ve seen this movie before. As Emma pointed out in the comments last week, several German cities fought and blocked HSR, only to regret their decision. And in Southern California, many former opponents of local rail, such as subways have come around in support of the project.
Unfortunately, that d’oh moment would come too late for England, which faces the same problems of dependence on rising oil prices that we face here in California. For English NIMBYs, as for Peninsula NIMBYs, that future apparently doesn’t exist – or even if it does, the NIMBYs are betting they will survive just fine, even if everyone else around them suffers. Anything to protect their aesthetic values, no matter the destructive impact on their own wallets, their own communities, and their own societies.
We’re clearly living through a key moment in the development of passenger rail in the western world. Will California and England embrace a sustainable high speed rail future? Or will they be seduced by those small number of people, mostly prosperous if not outright wealthy, who claim the tracks are too ugly to be allowed, no matter how much they are needed?
In both places it’s a question of weighing the needs of the many against the desires of a few. Let’s hope that in California and England, common sense and the greater good win out over pandering to a small group of people whose priorities are badly out of whack.
UPDATE: You can find the NIMBY website here. It looks pretty familiar to those of us in California who have dealt with this stuff – they paint HSR as some kind of invader, say it will reduce property values, and go directly to undermining the business case for the entire route, suggesting they’re willing to blow up the whole project to suit themselves, just as are California NIMBYs.
I looked at the BBC story and the HS2 Alliance site, and two things stood out for me.
1. The generational pattern. Same looking people with the same grey hair. Perhaps no surprise there. This could tie in with No. 2, below, however:
2. This was a surprise–the joint groups claim not to be against HSR, but rather to want to get paid more money for their property, or else to mitigate the impacts of this new railroad. This ties in because these people do own property, and my impression is that owning property in Europe in general is rather harder to do economically than here because Europe has been settled so much longer, and there just isn’t that much really available. Who has money to by property in such circumstances? WOOFers (Well Off Older Folks), who else?
This may well be the case that this additional money is what these people want. What gives me this idea is that the HS2 Alliance page didn’t have anything I saw that looked like the rot we have here, as in suggesting trains were socialist. But then, I just glimpsed at the HS2 Alliance page, and I didn’t get to see any of the “testimonial” responses against the new line, so there might still be something there.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Yep. It’s very similar to what we have here in California – see my update to the post. It does seem to be a generational thing – people who have got theirs, the WOOFers, and who have simply stopped giving a shit about the rest of us who have to deal with the soaring cost of oil and congestion that they apparently don’t have to worry about any longer.
The joke’s on them, ultimately: the stagnant economies they will produce through their opposition to HSR will lead to a reduction in their pensions, their health benefits, their disposable income, their home values, and their quality of life – because we’ll be spending so much money keeping our heads above water in an era of peak oil that their comparative economic wealth will stand out like a fat target. In fact, here in the US, this is already starting to happen. And while I would love to prevent that kind of outcome, if the WOOFers insist on blocking the infrastructure we need to ensure future prosperity, well, there’s little I can do to stop them from pulling the rug from underneath themselves.
All in order to preserve a failed 20th century vision of urban (or in the English case, rural) life, all in order to preserve our dependence on oil. It’s just tragic.
EJ Reply:
May 27th, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Cute, you’ve found a new nasty name to call people. Name-calling and facile analogies about things you know little about are definitely easier than thinking.
You’re positively gloating about putting the screws to older people (most of whom aren’t all that rich). Now, I do think that somewhere in that rotten little cesspit you call a brain you do want to be an advocate for HSR, so you really shouldn’t make your case based on your own copious personal resentments.
EJ Reply:
May 27th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Sorry, that came off a bit more strongly worded than I really intended, but geez, man, lay off the poor old folks – you seem like you have a lot of resentment that somebody somewhere might have property worth something and you act like it’s evidence of wrongdoing.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 4:30 am
I’m glad you’re trying to be understanding, but things are what they are. I can only say I wish the older establishment and political people I dealt with had the respect to listen and consider what I had to say and not call me a Communist and some other things that I can’t repeat on what I assume to be a family-friendly forum. I will add that I wasn’t some smart-pants teenager at the time, but was in my forties–a pretty mature age for most.
If you look back on some older posts here, I explain where this comes from, specifically that these people came of age in a time when trains were supposed to go the way of the stagecoach (they would have been 20 to 25 between 1950 and the first oil crunch of 1973), and they haven’t been able to grasp the idea that the future isn’t what the future used to be.
I’ll mention this even plays out in recent American Presidents in relation to a low-end break-point in the demographics (about 57 to 60 years old). George W. Bush was very, very anti-rail, and he is about 63 now, while Bill Clinton, at the same current age, essentially neglected the subject; Barrack Obama is about 48 or so, and for whatever other shortcomings he has, is very pro-rail.
Please also note that this is simply a demographic pattern; not everbody fits it, you always have individual variations!
Alon Levy Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Britain’s home ownership rate is the same as the USA’s. There are some countries in Europe where fewer people own property – for example, Switzerland, where you’re taxed on imputed rents even if you use your property yourself – but most have similar property ownership to the US.
Nathanael Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Remember, “socialism” isn’t a bad word in Britain. The Labour party is avowedly and officially socialist.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
The Labour Party hasn’t been socialist since the 1990s. Blair avowedly promoted a Third Way between socialism and Thatcherism.
“All in order to preserve a failed 20th century vision of urban (or in the English case, rural) life, all in order to preserve our dependence on oil. It’s just tragic.” R. Cruikshank
Sounds like you’ve been reading James Howard Kunstler.
I had the chance to meet him some years back in Baltimore. He’s kind of surprising, rather small (much shorter than I am, I’m just under 6 feet), vitriolic when speaking on stage, yet a most sensitive soul when talking with him in person.
His tone is becoming more and more pessimistic on his own website of late; I’m not entirely sure I blame him for this, even if he is a congenital pessimist. As for myself, I’ve lost so many battles (and won nothing) that I often find myself feeling mighty low, too.
Still, you managed in California to get the pols to do things differently, even if glacially. How did you do it?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Indeed. When I read Kunstler’s “Long Emergency” in late 2006 it crystallized a lot of things for me; my advocacy for California HSR began soon afterward. I don’t fully agree with his “doomer” perspective – I’m somewhere between Kunstler and Richard Florida on all this. Florida sees a “great reset” that takes about 20 years to complete, with a lot of short-term pain but long-term recovery if we do the right things, including build HSR. Kunstler sees a “long emergency” that results in a permanently degraded standard of living and widespread immiseration, leading to social crisis and political chaos in some parts of the country. I think things will be a bit worse than Florida foresees, but not nearly as dire as Kunstler foresees.
More – much more – on Florida and the “great reset” later today. He devoted an entire chapter of the new book to HSR.
How did we manage to get the pols to do things differently here in CA? Well, I’m not sure we really did. In the late 1990s Jim Costa, then in the Legislature, led the creation of a new HSR project, including the creation of the CHSRA. Arnold Schwarzenegger understood the project’s importance, but kept delaying the bond sale, and screwed with the Authority’s budget, undermining their ability to do the public outreach they needed to do. Still, the bond vote went ahead in November 2008, the perfect time to do so – a favorable electorate with fresh memories of the gas price spike passed the bonds.
Our sclerotic political system, however, may well be the undoing of HSR. The term-limited legislature has little incentive to see this project through, and is susceptible to the loud voices of a few people who want to kill the HSR project.
We will see whether California can rise to the challenge.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Kunstler and Florida aren’t really contrasts, Robert. Both have an essential stable view of things – Kunstler thinks that after some turmoil things will go back to 1840, and Florida thinks they’ll turn the US into a gigantic West Village. There are so many other scenarios out there: a French-style split into rich cities and poor country, new urbanism becoming so sterile the suburbs become chic again in a couple of decades, technological breakthroughs making electric cars affordable, a national decline relative to Europe and Asia, social breakdown leading to all-out war.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
The difference is that Kunstler and Florida are both dealing directly with the core problem at the heart of our economy: dependence on oil. Florida adds in, correctly I believe, a diagnosis of dependence on housing markets.
Florida isn’t really calling for a “gigantic West Village” – he’s more flexible about what we might see. Pittsburgh seems to be his model, but he thinks even that is going to change. A French-style split is quite compatible with what Florida is talking about, especially if we fail to invest in retrofitting the suburbs.
Electric cars are being held out as the salvation for the 20th century way of life, the way to maintain things exactly as they are. As we’ve been trying to explain to Elizabeth in the other thread, it doesn’t matter if electric cars become affordable (and electricity somehow doesn’t see a huge price spike owing to the combo of higher demand and higher fossil fuel costs), HSR still is faster than an electric car and avoids traffic congestion, which affordable electric cars will only worsen.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 27th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
The dependence on oil is almost a red herring. There are multiple developed countries with half the per capita oil consumption of the US: for examples, France, the UK, Germany, Italy. A post-oil world should look something like those countries only more extreme, rather than a fantasy of the past.
In Florida’s case, it’s an even bigger red herring. Florida’s original premise was that being more tolerant of gays made cities more economically developed. The study behind it is not viewed as authoritative by most urban studies experts, but that didn’t stop Florida from coming up with grander and more fact-free theories of cities, Thomas Friedman-style.
This reminded me that many years back the French fought HSR arguing that vibration would damage aging wine in their cellars.
Interesting that NIMBYism is as old as HSR itself.
HSRforCali Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
The French would be worried more about their wine cellars rather than their schools and homes…
jimsf Reply:
May 24th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Whats a little vibration so long as you have a glass of good wine in hand. They know how to prioritize.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 4:30 am
Actually, it goes back to the first days of railroads. Farmers feared hens would stop laying eggs, cows would quit giving milk, and their barns and fields would be set afire. Preachers called trains the work of the devil. Considering what very early locomotives looked like, perhaps this was understandable, as this demonstration of the “Steam Elephant,” a replica of a locomotive built in 1815 shows–personally, I look at the thing and what I hope is just a chattering safety valve (but it doesn’t look like any safety I’ve seen) and wonder why it doesn’t blow up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q9fKOHC_ck
We need to remember where we’ve been, so we can properly chart where we want to go.
John Burrows Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 9:48 am
It looks like NIMBYism is as old as the railroad itself, (nearly 200 years). Perhaps the English NIMBYS should go back in their own history to see how quickly their country was transformed by the first railroads. Some of them might put aside their fears about noise or vibration (they probably don’t have to worry about their chickens and cows anymore) and become supporters of HSR .
In California, doubters of HSR say that ridership projections are too high. When the first passenger railroad opened in England between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830, passenger revenue was ten times greater than what had been projected. California in 2010 is not England in 1830, but we are building a new revolutionary transportation system and I wonder if ridership has been underestimated, not overestimated.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 9:55 am
I’ve made that point often. Given that the ridership studies the CHSRA is using are from 2005, I too believe they likely underestimate ridership. Newer studies, such as those being demanded by the HSR critics out of a belief that new studies will undermine the case for HSR, are actually more likely to produce higher estimates than the ’05 studies.
I am beginning to wonder if this NIMBYism is a sort of Luddite mentality – an opposition to new technology out of a belief that the new tech will destroy an existing way of life.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Check this video link out, specifically at 3:45–NIMBY’s from the 1830s reenacted in the 1940s!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TwAWJjdSEU&feature=related
Doing this sort of thing tickles my brain cells, I know there’s more material like this around. I wonder if it can somehow be used against the NIMBY’s now. I do know there is a Cato Institute anti-HSR video out there somewhere that makes the claim HSR is dirty because much electricity in the US comes from coal–and uses a vintage video clip of a steam train to make the point.
Turnabout is supposed to be fair play–if we can get the material to the right people. I’ll be posting more on this later.
In the meantime, have fun with a couple of other vintage promotional railroad films that have a wonderful “American the Beautiful” feel for a nostalgia hound like me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKY9PnkVr1A&feature=fvsr
Being a steam fan, my favorite line in this one is from a narrator playing an employee–”Coal is the fuel we use–and like.” Big steamers, panting air compressors, hand signals with kerosene lanterns, fashonable hats on officials. . .anybody know where I can contact Mr. Peabody about borrowing his Way Back Machine?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mXo_ya-kAE
Similar film from the Southern Pacific:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM2VzVtEOWg
Enjoy.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
I have to admit, I was wrong, it was the Reason Foundation, not Cato:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xyUg4J7Sf8&feature=PlayList&p=9D53D4A17A96926B&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=40
A personal response–and a young guy doing it on his own! The younger set will save us, if their fumbling forefathers will let them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDaUYQfosV0&feature=related
WOOFers (mostly) again, in Illinois–sigh;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3u9zJIxi4U&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFZDtk0uO-U&NR=1
Might as well check out the opposition, see what they are up to:
http://www.illinoispolicy.org/
I could tell them a thing or two, particularly about road costs, but would they listen?
http://illinoispolicy.org/search2/?zoom_query=railroads&submit=Search
No NIMBY lessons, but a fine movie (at least I think so); Lowell Thomas is the narrator, love Howard S. Palmer’s accent, no doubt he’s a New Englander:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=PoathJunction#p/u/177/Px_ltuSo9-Y
There is some more vintage NIMBY stuff, I’ll find it yet, just not now. . .
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
I think a lot of the NIMBY business we are dealing with is, besides being generational, a reaction to American (and British?) conditions in general, following the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. For many people, the time before that was something of a golden age, even if that time has been described by columnist Leonard Pitts (Orlando Sentinal Writers Group the last time I checked) as a “time that was but never was.” It was what some other people would call an “Ozzie and Harriet” world, and what could be described as a “fantasy” aspect of this was explored in a film called “Pleasantville.” The criticism that this was a fantasy is only partially true; I’ll mention here that I am old enough to remember the end of this time, and I can tell you that the atmosphere, the feel, of “Pleasantville,” was not a total fabrication.
Interestingly, some steam locomotive charter groups have been recreating an aspect of “Pleasantville” that I wish had been in the film–railroads. A video sample from such a photo charter, featuring NYC&St.L (Nickel Plate Road, or NKP) 2-8-4 765 (Lima, 1944), illustrates the point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF1aqLBkCJA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqNB3R0gSDE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3L0I6sJ_cU
Oh, what it will take to get this out of our collective soul!
All this came apart. Most people didn’t feel what we railfans felt in the 1950s. The turn for the general public came in the 1960s. Rock music came out that sounded bad (I’m in this camp), nudity and bad language came into movies (I’m in that camp, too, that’s part of why I’m such an old movie fan, they started going downhill for me in 1953!), abortion got allowed (I have to admit, I’m in the pro-life crowd, I’m Catholic), and Viet Nam, and oil crunches in 1973 and 1979, and those “towel heads” causing trouble, and those “environmentalists” stopping us from drilling more and doing other problems like protecting snail darters and owls, AND MY LITTLE GRANDAUGHTER’S PREGNANT AND THOSE “TOWEL HEADS” BLEW UP THE PENTAGON AND THE TRADE CENTER AND. . .you get the picture. . .AND WE DON’T WANT OUR CARS TAKEN AWAY, YOU WANT TO BRING BACK THE HORSE AND BUGGY, YOU !@$%&@!! COMMUNIST!!
I exagerate only for illustration, but I was called a Communist for suggesting a trolley line instead of a 4-lane road in West Virginia.
Anyway, I think this at least partially explains the NIMBY business we have.
I’m not familiar with “The Great Reset” by Florida, but there is a study group or consultancy on this subject; you may want to look at this outfit, in particular its blog entries on “Rage on the Right.”
I’m short on time again, but I’ll be back. In the meantime, here are the links to Nine Shif and its weblog:
http://nineshift.com/
http://nineshift.com/firstChapter.htm
http://nineshift.typepad.com/
Enjoy.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 4:31 am
I knew this was around somewhere–the reasoning behind a conservative backlash that’s cultural in nature, and how the Republicans have taken advantage of this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_the_Matter_with_Kansas
http://www.alternativeradio.org/programs/FRAT001.shtml
http://us.macmillan.com/whatsthematterwithkansas
http://tcfrank.com/
Rightly or wrongly, we have been associated with the ills of America, being accused of being “liberal.” Pretty funny, though, when most rail enthusiasts like myself are among the most conservative of people in personal lifestyle. In fact, a most conservative icon, the late Paul Weyrich, and his still-living associate William Lind, were and are great rail supporters!
I think the tea-party crowd here has everything backward. I don’t think the government is taking over big business and big banks; I think business and the banks have taken over the government!
How do we get out of that mess?
Nathanael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 12:13 am
I wonder why the people from the ’50s never seriously talked to the people from the ’20s and ’30s.
That’s why I knew what was up — from my parents and grandparents. The story of the 20s and 30s is much more relevant to the modern day.
Sadly, Wales will not be getting high speed rail this go round, so rather than speaking of “Great Britain” it would be better to simply refer to England (and possibly Scotland).
Also, please note that the terms “Great Britain” and “United Kingdom” are not interchangeable.
Nathanael Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Wales is, however, *finally* getting an electrified mainline to London. So that’s something.
It is interesting that so far the only NIMBYs have been English, as far as I can tell. The Scottish and Welsh seem all for HSR.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 12:20 am
Palo Alto and MenloPark..WISH they could be a small English town..thet are nothing more than a tacky BayArea Slurb…Midwest towns in Ohio have more real class
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Well, they will be once Ireland is reunified.
(Kidding – thanks for the note!)
pedant Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
My pleasure. I very much enjoy your work on the blog.
I live near the East Coast mainline from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross and in fact can here a 100mph electric commuter train in the distance now but it isnt very loud at all. Edinburgh is currently about 4hrs 15min by the quickest train which isnt bad for a 400 mile journey and is almost competitive with the door to door air journey. I love the idea of a 240mph railway but would settle for 155mph if that meant building the hsr. Maybe we should look at not how fast we can go but how fast we need to in order to encourage migration to the railway.
I can understand how people living in a quiet beautiful part of the country would be opposed to hsr, particularly as there aren’t any plans to provide an intermediate station – perhaps this should be considered. Under the plans by the previous government the line through the Chilterns would be in tunnel then shadowing an existing road and then following the route of a previous currently disused railway. The area is also by disected by a motorway which was built about 20 years ago.
There are arguments against hsr but at least the crazy third runway has been dropped which would have completely destroyed several villages ! The co2 argument against rail is not really proven as the comparison should not be made between hsr and ordinary rail but rather road and short haul flights for which it obviously produces less. the point is that in order to take traffice from these other modes the speed must be increased beyong the current 125 mph but as I said above maybe in the UK speeds as high as 240mph may not be required but nice to have !
HSR would obviously take traffic from the classic rail network but then the classic network would have more capacity to enable further modal shift. Also if those against or concerned by hsr want compensation if their property values fall will they be willing to pay extra if their values go up as is most likely ? The whole basis of the London Crossrail now hopefully still being built was that businesses would pay higher rates and maybe also private properties rates might go up. It is tru that the majority of the new line will be in tunnel but it will obvoiusly increase greatly the number of trains on the lines it connects with.
I applaud the new government for cancelling the third runway and also for stating that we will have hsr at some point anyway ! It is also important that the line be connected to high speed 1 to the continent to allow direct throught trains. I believe we should concentrate on building the actual railway and add or upgrade the stations later as this would spread the cost out and mean we could possibly have the lines built sooner.
UK planned to build HSR for a long time now. It is lags far behind its neighbors on the mainland. I hope they are not trying to do their own thing e.g. change the gauge. I also heard of problems since the railway system ot privatized. What’s the deal with that? Will a high speed train fit in?
Rafael Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 5:19 am
No, they use standard gauge in the UK. And yes, there have been problems with rail privatization because standard-speed services – unlike those at high speed – always struggle to turn an operating profit. The existing East and West Coast main lines support speeds of up to 125mph, which is near the break-even point.
Even HSR networks generally don’t generate enough profit to service the debt on the capital investment in their starter lines. No-one ever claimed California HSR would do so and, the same is true of HS1 and HS2 in the UK. As long as taxpayers foot the bill for road construction, passenger rail will also be a public service to some extent. The difference is that express HSR sets a time horizon for a high burden on taxpayers (i.e. until the initial bonds are paid in full) whereas emerging HSR imposes a much lower burden (i.e. operating subsidies) indefinitely.
Nathanael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 12:14 am
Thank goodness Britain is only semi-privatized — after a horrendous disaster known as “Railtrack”, the tracks are back in public ownership. So HSR trains can simply be given slots by order of the government.
I think Emma meant loading gauge aka Lichtraumprofil – it’s indeed smaller on the Isles and prevents most of mainland rolling stock entry past Channel Tunnel.
Nathanael Reply:
May 28th, 2010 at 12:15 am
There is definitely talk of making the HSR line have “continental” loading gauge. This would allow “English” trains to run on the HSR lines, but not to stop at the HSR stations, and would require separate platforms for the HSR trains.
It seems relatively unlikely at this time.